# Tab (the soft drink)
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tab-the-soft-drink/749004
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [March 14, 2016, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tab-the-soft-drink/749004 "2016-03-14T19:14:30Z")
**Posts on this page:** 13
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)
#### Post date: [March 16, 2016, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tab-the-soft-drink/749004/21 "2016-03-16T06:22:27Z")
> [@Broomstick](#):
>
> Nope, they’re using aspartame these days. Says so right on the can. (We have a lot of Tab cans around here)
Nope, they’re using [both](http://www.coca-colaproductfacts.com/en/coca-cola-products/tab/).
Some people must still like that hella awful diet taste from the 70’s, which may explain why some products (like Tab and Sweet-n-Low) still use saccharine. Blech.
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### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [March 16, 2016, 8:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tab-the-soft-drink/749004/22 "2016-03-16T08:55:50Z")
> [@kopek](#):
>
> Like Dr Pepper I’ll have one every great once in a while; to remember the past. One thing I’ll never do is drink it the way my one great-aunt did ------ hot. :eek:
There was a big ad campaign way back when, trying to get people to drink it hot. I wonder why anyone thought that would be a good idea. Not I.
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### Author:  [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)
#### Post date: [March 16, 2016, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tab-the-soft-drink/749004/23 "2016-03-16T10:14:51Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#):
>
> There was a big ad campaign way back when, trying to get people to drink it hot.
I’ve got a really good memory for things past but I honestly don’t remember that. Any idea about when that was? 60’s, 70’s? 😕
I remember people mixing Coca Cola with Rhine wine back in the 70’s. I have no idea WTF that was about. I like both but not together. Double blech!
My mother-in-law pretty much drank herself to death on [Tanqueray and Tab](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEv3jyqnUwc). And that was back in the bad ol’ days when it was all saccharine. [Yuck!](http://enigmawing.deviantart.com/art/Mr-Yuk-97510271)
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### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [March 16, 2016, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tab-the-soft-drink/749004/24 "2016-03-16T11:00:21Z")
> [@pkbites](#):
>
> I’ve got a really good memory for things past but I honestly don’t remember that. Any idea about when that was? 60’s, 70’s? 😕
I remember it from the 1960s for sure. [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr_Pepper) says: **“In the early 1960s, Dr Pepper promoted the idea of serving the drink hot with lemon slices in winter. This idea appeared in the film _Blast from the Past_ initially set in the early '60s.”**
More on it [here](http://drinks.seriouseats.com/2013/01/soda-hot-dr-pepper-warm-soda-tradition-southern-drinks.html). Says it caught on mainly in the South, but I believe it was a nationwide campaign. I don’t think it really caught on in West Texas.
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### Author:  [@Carryon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carryon)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2016, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tab-the-soft-drink/749004/25 "2016-03-17T22:14:02Z")
Now if they could bring back Canfield’s Diet Fudge Soda…
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2016, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tab-the-soft-drink/749004/26 "2016-03-17T23:36:33Z")
I drank it when it first came out, and it is about the only diet soda I could ever stand. Forget the aspartame stuff - too funny tasting. I once took a class with people from a lot of different companies. We were sitting at a table of 8 with a guy from the company that makes the stuff. He said, “there’s no after taste” and every other person at that table said “yes there is.”
I’ll take sugar myself.
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### Author:  [@typoink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/typoink)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2016, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tab-the-soft-drink/749004/27 "2016-03-17T23:44:56Z")
I actually bought a pack of Tab a while back as an ironic gag. I never had it growing up, and I always like trying famously bad / niche beverages.
I was shocked – I legitimately like Tab more than Diet Coke. Saccharine has a definite flavor, but I don’t find it all that unpleasant and overall I think it tastes less “artificial” than Diet Coke.
I don’t like it quite as much as Coke Zero or Diet Pepsi (which both use better post-aspartame sweeteners), but enough that I’ll still buy it now and again.
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### Author:  [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2016, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tab-the-soft-drink/749004/28 "2016-03-18T01:30:16Z")
When I was little, like 4 or 5, I was taken to the supermarket by my mother, along with my older siblings. There was a soda machine outside the main entrance and on our way out I pushed a button on the machine, as I always did, only this time the machine rumbled and a soda popped out. It was a TAB.
I don’t know what happened to it, but I know I never got to drink it.
Now that I think about it, I’m not sure I’ve ever actually had one.
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### Author:  [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2016, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tab-the-soft-drink/749004/29 "2016-03-18T02:54:38Z")
> [@Spoons](#):
>
> Moxie. I tried that once while driving through New England. It was like drinking liquid bubblegum. We didn’t know whether to drink it or chew it–only, you couldn’t chew it. At any rate, it was awful, and we threw out four cans of a six-pack at a rest stop in New Hampshire.
Finally, I know who to thank! j/k, I finally tried Moxie and didn’t love it, but I wouldn’t say bubblegum. I’d say bitter root beer or birch beer.
> [@Shagnasty](#):
>
> Those are fighting words. I loves me some Big Red or at least I used to when I could get it. I don’t know what flavor it is but bubblegum seems to be the closest match. It is overly sweet and brightly dyed to match but it is like drinking candy if you are in the mood for that sort of thing.
Hee. I’ve toyed with the idea of switching from name brand diet cola to Price Chopper or Hannaford store brand, on the theory that the cheap diet sodas must be better than they used to be. My father says the orange is fine, exactly the completely artificial orange taste you’d be hoping for. 🙂
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### Author:  [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2016, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tab-the-soft-drink/749004/30 "2016-03-18T12:11:01Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#):
>
> Those are fighting words. I loves me some Big Red or at least I used to when I could get it. I don’t know what flavor it is but bubblegum seems to be the closest match. It is overly sweet and brightly dyed to match but it is like drinking candy if you are in the mood for that sort of thing.
This past Xmas while visiting the in-laws in Louisville I made my first visit to an actual White Castle (I’ve gotten them frozen from Walmart before). The self-serve soda fountain had all the usual options, along with something called “Big Red.” I likened it to cream soda with a stick of Fruit Stripe gum in it. It was the perfect accompaniment to tiny cheeseburgers and crinkly fries.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2016, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tab-the-soft-drink/749004/31 "2016-03-18T14:40:05Z")
Those of you who haven’t had Moxie recently should know they’ve messed with the flavor. It’s still more bitter than most sodas but it’s noticeably sweeter than it used to be. Apparently this was done as part of a campaign to rebrand Moxie as an “energy drink”.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2016, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tab-the-soft-drink/749004/32 "2016-03-18T14:43:25Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#):
>
> I loves me some Big Red or at least I used to when I could get it. I don’t know what flavor it is
Probably the same flavor found in breakfast cereals: “froot”.
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### Author:  [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2016, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tab-the-soft-drink/749004/33 "2016-03-18T14:46:27Z")
> [@elfkin477](#):
>
> My mom drank it when she was pregnant with my brother in 1983. She let me try it and I will never forget that it tastes like battery acid.
How did your brother turn out? :eek:
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